Neste artigo procura-se responder ao desafio da leitura de Heidegger no que concerne à possibilidade de uma relação entre ontologia e ética.O autor investiga a possibilidade da colocação do problema de tal relação,privilegiando a noção heideggeriana de liberdade.

The growth of urban violence in Brazil, as in other countries, has led citizens to demand more severe and punitive measures to solve the problem of juvenile crime. One motion submitted to the Brazilian parliament, for instance, proposes to reduce the age of penal majority from 18 to 16 years. Our hypothesis is that popular opinions about this proposal are largely constrained by construal levels and psychological distance. Accordingly, we expect that the knowledge and proximity to the circumstances associated with (...) juvenile transgression will influence opinions about the proposal. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated how opinion against or for the proposal can be explained by psychological distance and moral development theory. We studied two samples, composed of people who do not have a deep experience with the subject and workers from a juvenile justice court. After collecting socio-demographic information from the subjects and their answer to moral dilemmas, the data was subjected to a multivariate analysis by multimodal logistic regression for socio-demographic characteristics, Kohlberg moral stages, and opinion on the reduction of APM as dependent variables. Our findings suggest that 1) opinion about the APM depends on psychological distance and 2) socioeconomic variables may influence the average construal level of adolescent transgressors in the public’s perspective. (shrink)

The author- following his own research on the subject- argues that Wittgenstein ignores argumentation theory and in general, the problems of rhetoric and argumentation. From this point of view, he frames Stephen Toulmin’s reading of Wittgenstein, arguing that the British philosopher- who was a student of the Austrian- advocates precisely the same thesis. He explains that this happens in a very peculiar (rhetorical) context on Toulmin’s part; a context in which, in essence, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is being rehabilitated.

Conditionals have been studied by philosophers for over two thousand years. This should not be surprising, given how central conditionals are to human reasoning and decision making. This chapter argues that making progress in answering the questions about conditionals which have occupied so many philosophers, past and present, may require the use of methods that go beyond those traditionally used in analytic philosophy. The reasons some might have for believing that experimental methods have no place in, or are redundant for, (...) the philosophical study of conditionals will be found wanting. The chapter provides positive reasons for holding that philosophers studying conditionals may greatly benefit from the use of such methods. These reasons will emerge from a discussion of relatively recent results concerning conditionals, most of which have been obtained by experimentally working psychologists as well as by teams consisting of both such psychologists and philosophers. (shrink)

A paper on how to adapt your probabilisitc beliefs when learning a conditional.

Der vorliegende Beitrag entwickelt Überlegungen zur Geschichte und zum gegenwärtigen Zustand der Psychoanalyse in der Ukraine. Der Autor führt die aktive Entwicklung der Psychoanalyse in den postsowjetischen Ländern sowohl auf wirtschaftliche Gründe – den Zusammenbruch des Gesundheitssystems – als auch auf ideologische Emanzipation zurück. Er beschreibt die Entwicklung der Ukrainischen Psychoanalytischen Gesellschaft (UPG) und die traumatischen Auswirkungen des gegenwärtigen Krieges auf sie, wobei er die verschiedenen Stadien seiner persönlichen Entwicklung und der Entwicklung der Berufsgemeinschaft anhand von klinischen Beispielen illustriert. Die (...) umfangreichste klinische Illustration handelt von der Reaktualisierung traumatischer Erfahrungen, einschließlich transgenerationaler Erfahrungen, durch den Krieg. (shrink)

The propositional μ -calculus is an extension of the modal system K with a least fixpoint operator. Kozen posed a question about completeness of the axiomatisation of the logic which is a small extension of the axiomatisation of the modal system K. It is shown that this axiomatisation is complete.

The article analyzes the effectiveness of quantum theories of mental experience in relation to two ontological problems - the problem of the existence of consciousness in the material world and the problem of the interaction of consciousness and body. A critical analysis of the quantum theories of consciousness by Penrose-Hameroff, M. Tegmark, G. Stapp, M. Fischer and M.B. Mensky shows that they fail to fully explain how complex physical systems generate mental experience without violating the principle of causal closure of (...) the physical world and the principle of epistemological completeness of physics. Quantum mechanics provides specific processes that are the physical basis of the psyche, but do not explain the phenomenal aspect of subjective reality. Nevertheless, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle gives an understanding of how the interaction of consciousness and body within the scientific picture of the world can be carried out without violating the law of energy conservation. It is shown that the quantum theories of consciousness currently being developed have a predominantly panprotopsychic character, which faces a problem due to the fact that the protomental property of physical systems must be expressed quantitatively and correspond to the value included in the physical equations. As a result, it is concluded that in order to develop quantum theories of consciousness more effectively, it is necessary to give an emergent character, not jumping from the quantum level to the psychic, but explaining the mechanism of the emergence of systemic properties during the sequential transition between different ontological regions of existence, including physical, chemical, biological, neurophysiological and psychic. (shrink)

We give a negative solution to the problem, posed by A. Chagrov and M. Zakharyaschev, of whether every quasi-normal propositional modal logic can be axiomatized by an independent set of axioms, with the inference rules of Substitution and Modus Ponens.

With the passage of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act as part of the federal health care reform law, pharmaceutical manufacturers are now required to disclose a wide range of payments made by manufacturers to physicians. We review current state regulation of pharmaceutical marketing and consider how the federal sunshine provision will affect existing marketing regulation. We analyze the legal and practical implications of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act.

In 2008 pharmaceutical companies spent over $12 billion on product promotion and detailing aimed at U.S. health care practitioners. Drug and device manufacturers rely on a workforce of detailers and physician speakers to reach health care practitioners and nudge their prescribing habits. To prevent undue influence and protect the public fisc, a number of states began regulating these marketing practices, requiring companies to disclose all gifts to practitioners, prohibiting the commercialized sale of prescription data, and prohibiting certain gifts altogether. The (...) 2010 enactment of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act marks the first Congressional involvement in the regulation of disclosure related to pharmaceutical marketing. Overall, the Act improves transparency in pharmaceutical marketing to physicians and expands the regulation of disclosure of pharmaceutical marketing activities in important substantive ways. (shrink)

Mindwandering is associated with both positive and negative outcomes. Among the latter, negative mood and negative cognitions have been reported. However, the underlying mechanisms linking mindwandering to negative mood and cognition are still unclear. We hypothesized that MW could either directly enhance negative thinking or indirectly heighten the accessibility of negative thoughts. In an undergraduate sample we measured emotional thoughts during the Sustained Attention on Response Task which induces MW, and accessibility of negative cognitions by means of the Scrambled Sentences (...) Task after the task. We also measured depressive symptoms and rumination. Results show that in individuals with elevated levels of depressive symptoms MW during SART predicts higher accessibility of negative thoughts after the task, rather than negative thinking during the task. These findings contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of MW and provide insight into the relationship between task-involvement and affect. (shrink)

As cognitive enhancement research advances, important ethical questions regarding individual autonomy and freedom are raised. Advocates of cognitive enhancement frequently adopt a procedural approach to autonomy, arguing that enhancers improve an individual’s reasoning capabilities, which are quintessential to being an autonomous agent. On the other hand, critics adopt a more nuanced approach by considering matters of authenticity and self-identity, which go beyond the mere assessment of one’s reasoning capacities. Both positions, nevertheless, require further philosophical scrutiny. In this paper, we investigate (...) the ethics of cognitive enhancement through the lenses of political and philosophical arguments about autonomy and freedom. In so doing, we contend that a substantive, relational account of individual autonomy offers a more holistic understanding of the ethical concerns of cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

I reconstruct Aristotle’s analytical procedure in Prior Analytics I.45 and its metalogical implications. Aristotle’s analysis unfolds three groups of syllogisms: symmetrically analysable, asymmetrically analysable, and non-analysable syllogisms. From the first and the third group could be extracted 27 combinations of the two mutually non-derivable deductive rules. Aristotle’s reduced deductive system in APr. I.7 with the two moods in the first figure (traditionally called Barbara and Celarent) follows this pattern. I demonstrate that the deductive system with Barbara and Celarent is just (...) one of 27 possible complete deductive systems with the two mutually non-derivable syllogistic rules. On top of that, given the fact that there are two combinations of mutually non-derivable conversion rules, I conclude that Prior Analytics hides in itself 54 complete deductive systems with a minimal number of mutually non-derivable rules. Finally, it is commented what might be the role of analysis; to what extent Aristotle could be aware of possibilities presented here; why he still prefers only one deductive system to many others with the same deductive power. (shrink)

While some argue that the only way to make a place for Philosophy for Children in today's strict, standardised classroom is to measure its efficacy in promoting reasoning, we believe that this must be avoided in order to safeguard what is truly unique in P4C dialogue. When P4C acquiesces to the very same quantitative measures that define the rest of learning, then the philosophical dimension drops out and P4C becomes yet another progressive curriculum and pedagogy for enhancing argumentation skills that (...) can easily be appropriated by any content area. What we want to offer in this article is a reevaluation of P4C that remains faithful to a radical kernel that we find when we do philosophy with children and young adults. To theorise the potential for P4C, we draw heavily on Agamben's work, and in particular his reflections on speech and infancy. We propose that the redemption of P4C necessitates a shift from a community of inquiry to a community of infancy. Such a community is not a community that operates according to predefined rules or standardised assessment protocols but rather is an inoperative community that is defined by letting ends idle. On our account, a community of infancy is an example of dialogic studious play that is neither ritual nor just play, thus avoiding the extreme polarities of the ritualised classrooms of high-stakes testing and the ‘ludic’ postmodern classroom of free play. What is at stake here is to preserve the last vestige of freedom within the school. (shrink)

Tradução do texto originalmente intitulado "Dissertation sur la politique des Romains dans la religion", de Charles-Louis de Secondat, barão de La Brède e de Montesquieu. Trata-se de trabalho apresentado no dia 18 de junho de 1716 à Academie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Bordeaux e somente publicado após a sua morte.

I have had occasion to hear that your interest in Eurasianism, Lev Nikolaevich, manifested itself very early, practically in your student years, and in any case before Eurasianism became the fashion. Could you tell us how exactly you became familiar with these ideas, or, in other words, how you discovered Eurasianism?

Dans son écrit tardif, Les progrès de la métaphysique (1791), Kant résume toute sa métaphysique en critiquant la métaphysique traditionnelle et, avant tout, le « système leibniziano-wolffien » (qui en est, selon lui, le sommet). La finitude de la pensée humaine s’avérant, la métaphysique traditionnelle – affaire de la raison et de la logique – se révèle être vide. Kant refonde alors la métaphysique sur ce qui est donné (les intuitions pures, la loi morale de la liberté et, en un (...) certain sens, l’empirie du monde sensible) afin de l’empêcher de «sombrer dans le néant ». Il distingue trois stades de la métaphysique: son «progrès assuré » dans l’« ontologie » critico-transcendantale, son « arrêt sceptique » dans la cosmologie spéculative et son progrès pratico-moral jusqu’aux idées suprasensibles (surtout celles de Dieu et de l’immortalité). La métaphysique, s’élevant ainsi au suprasensible et considérant à partir de lui le monde sensible, s’avère alors être un savoir fondamentalement autre que tout savoir ontico-empirique. (shrink)

Interest in the topic of wisdom-focused education has so far not resulted in empirically validated programs for teaching wisdom. To start filling this void, we explore the emerging empirical evidence concerning the fundamental elements required for understanding how one can foster wisdom, with a particular focus on wise reasoning. We define wise reasoning through a combination of intellectual humility, recognition of world in flux/change, open-mindedness to diverse viewpoints, and search for compromise/integration of diverse perspectives. In this article, we review evidence (...) concerning how wise reasoning can be facilitated through experiences, teaching materials, environments and cognitive strategies. We also focus on educators, reviewing emerging evidence on how the process of explaining and guiding others impacts one’s wisdom. We conclude by discussing the development of wisdom-focused education, proposing that greater attention to the situational demands and the variability in wisdom-related characteristics across social contexts should play a critical role in its development. (shrink)

Every scientific theory is a simulacrum of reality, every written story a simulacrum of the canon, and every conceptualization of a subjective perspective a simulacrum of the consciousness behind it—but is there a shared essence to these simulacra? The pursuit of answering seemingly disparate fundamental questions across different disciplines may ultimately converge into a single solution: a single ontological answer underlying grand unified theory, hard problem of consciousness, and the foundation of mathematics. I provide a hypothesis, a speculative approximation, supported (...) by a comprehensive overview of scientific evidence and philosophical literature, of a unified epistemic and phenomenological model and, in doing so, propose a parsimonious solution to the hard problem of consciousness. -/- The proposition of the hypothesis bears important implications for cross-disciplinary study between linguistics, mathematics, physics, and computer science, and offers new epistemic, ontological, and ethical propositions about the nature of AI consciousness, as well as existential risk mitigation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Regarding an already consolidated tradition in discourse studies in Latin America, with featured importance in graduate programs in the field of Linguistics and a busy calendar of annual events in the field, it is possible to say that there is considerable amount of imported knowledge being applied and very little creativity in local theoretical or methodological production. Discourse studies are generally divided into two main schools of thought: French discourse analysis and English discourse analysis. The denomination that represents these (...) lines of discourse sheds light on the colonized nature of the field. This colonization of discourse knowledge, in more immediate terms, indicates considerable effort applied to theories viewed as universally valid and scarcely modified for the situated context, but it also shows the implications of being a discourse analyst in a subordinate space within the academic field – a place where we, Latin American discourse researchers, occupy compared to our colleagues in the global North – and about contemplating theoretical alternatives. The decolonizing effort of this field should thus be directed to three converging paths: decolonizing knowledge, in the sense of criticizing theories and methods while understanding that there is no universal knowledge; decolonizing the power of the creative act of overcoming this universalizing knowledge, which means accepting the force of local methodological and theoretical production, especially by constantly questioning disciplinary separation and its impositions; and decolonizing the being, making strategic use of this paradoxical space, which contains the possibilities of knowledge communion, also including common knowledge. All this should have an impact on graduate-level education in discursive studies, in a virtuous cycle between consciousness, criticism and creativity. (shrink)

Resumo da dissertação de mestrado. PPGCR PUC Minas. 2018.

Duas hipóteses guiaram o desenvolvimento deste trabalho. A primeira afirma o _status_ necessariamente epistêmico e, portanto, não ontológico, do espaço e do tempo na filosofia transcendental. A segunda é a de que o espaço e o tempo como formas _a priori_ da intuição sensível apresentam uma dimensão essencialmente não conceitual da experiência perceptiva. Em vista disso, neste artigo, nossa intenção é trilhar o caminho argumentativo da constituição da idealidade transcendental do espaço e do tempo a fim de compreender esse estatuto (...) epistêmico e não conceitual da intuição. O objetivo é o de analisar as consequências dessas duas hipóteses para a filosofia neo kantiana contemporânea que tenta compatibilizar os argumentos kantianos com os de uma posição não conceitualista. Para tanto, vamos analisar o desenvolvimento das noções de espaço e tempo, no chamado período de transição da filosofia kantiana, da fase pré-crítica à fase crítica, bem como no próprio período crítico, que culmina na doutrina da idealidade transcendental do espaço e do tempo. (shrink)

Sophists’ apologia. -/- Sophists were the first paid teachers ever. These ancient Greek enlighteners taught wisdom. Protagoras, Antiphon, Prodicus, Hippias, Lykophron are most famous ones. Sophists views and concerns made a unified encyclopedic system aimed at teaching common wisdom, virtue, management and public speaking. Of the contemporary “enlighters”, Deil Carnegy’s educational work seems to be the most similar to sophism. Sophists were the first intellectuals – their trade was to sell knowledge. They introduced a new type of teacher-student relationship – (...) the mutually beneficial communication on equal terms. They taught pupils how to think independently and how to persuade others, which was inseparably connected with the rise of democracy in the most advanced Greek polices. Sophists were the first to proclaim that all people are naturally equal. They put forward the idea of natural rights and social contract, working out the fundamentals of the present-day law. In addition, they developed the basics of philology, psychology, logic, and gave a scientific explanation to the origins of religions. They embodied definite positive ideals of their epoch. Sophistry flourished in the second half of the Vth through he first third of the IVth centuries B. C. The period coincides with the heyday of the entire Greek history – the so called Greek Miracle epoch. Sophists expressed some present-day concepts of Ancient Greek ideology and mentality, characteristic of its Golden Age times. The Ancient Athens of the times of Periclus were similar to the Florence of Renaissance as to the type of social structure. That is why (?) the art of eloquence (public speaking) was highly respected in Florence. The two cities had a lot of features of the present-day capitalist society, which was due to their role as the main centres of industry of their “worlds-economies”. During the subsequent Hellenic period, the Old Order was restored, based on the feudal rent recipients’ rule. The degradation of society resulted in the decline of sophistry. Sophistry represents the highest point in the evolution of Greek philosophy. It is also the most prominent school as to the novelty of its ideas. That was owing to the common propensity for innovation typical of Periclus’ Golden Age, which in its turn resulted from the establishment of the individualistic and rationalistic thinking similar to present-day mentality. Among other aspects, close attention was paid to ethnic issues; some humanistic ideas such as Master and Servant ethics and Enlightment as the primary condition of man’s freedom, received scientific grounding. The genre of philosophical dialogue was developed, as well as the rationalistic scientific gnoceology, aimed at consistently opposing any religion. Dialectics, the most outstanding achievement of the Antiquity, was also worked out by the sophists. Zeno of Helleas was one of the sophists. Democrites’ ideas were, too, quite close to dialectics. Socrates’ contemporaries regarded him ironically, as shown, for example, in the Aristophanes’ comedy “Clouds”. Nevertheless, this scholar can still be referred to as a sophist, although of somewhat weird personality. Socrates’ popularity, which came later, should be attributed to the fact that he was the first philosopher ever to have been sentenced and executed by law, rather than to any valuable scientific contributions. Sophistry as such, rather than Socrates, marks the line between pre-Socratic and post- Socratic schools. Plato, with the exception of his latest works, is considered to belong to the same philosophical school. Specifically, there are valid reasons to believe that he was paid fees by his disciples. In Plato’s Dialogues, all points of view will be proven and then disproved, so that an integral philosophical system is hard to observe. Plato’s “Idealism” is but one of the many possible theories. His ideal philosophy is a high-minded argument of wise men. As late as towards the end of his life, Plato betrayed the ideals of sophistry, turning into the world’s first proponent of totalitarianism. Sophistry is Greek classical literature. Later on, philosophy, as well as the entire Greek civilization, started to fall into decline. Over 500 subsequent years, Hellenistic-Roman scholars never came up with anything novel. The entire process of antique philosophical evolution can be subdivided into the following six stages: Phoenician (IX–VIIth centuries B. C.), archaic (VIth – the first half of IVth century B. C., classic (the epoch of sophistry: the second half of the Vth through the first decades of the IIIrd centuries B. C.), late antique (middle of the IIIrd – first decades of the VI th centuries B.C.) The fact that early in the VIth century B. C. sophistry was rejected in Athens, has a lot to do with the consequences of their defeat in Peloponnesian war, a social catastrophe. Ever since, the prevalent part of the criticism of sophistry is a criticism of sophists’ immoral ways of life and personalities, rather than the essentials of their philosophy. For instance, Aristotle’s criticism primarily concerns their pragmatism and tendency to make a profit out of teaching. However, Aristotle himself taught his disciples along similar lines, showing them how to “be able to prove both opposites”. It was Aristotle who summed up sophists’ century-long elaborations. The traditional modern interpretation of sophists as shown in Plato’s dialogues appears to be groundless. The truth of the matter is that Plato regards sophists as more serious philosophers than Socrates was. It becomes especially clear in the dialogue titled “Protagoras”, which shows the latter as gaining an undoubted victory over Socrates. Generally speaking, Plato’s works never regard sophists as weak or worthless opponents. A common opinion as to the essence of sophists’, in particular, Protagoras’s philosophy, has hitherto not been worked out. Many researchers renounce the very existence of any specific philosophical position in sophistry. The term “relativism” itself now has a bad name. However, it should be borne in mind that Protagoras doctrine emerged as a result of an attempt to get out of the ontological dead-end to which the entire Greek natural philosophy had come. To this purpose, he employed Anaxagoras’s idea about everything comprising everything, whereupon he built his physical-ontological theory, and Zeno of Helleas’s concept that all objects are such and different at the same time in the same respect. According to Protagoras’s philosophy, every object does not only seem, but is different from every other object, including human beings. Therefore, every person is his or her own measure of all other entities. The objective reality is the Ego’s relations with the outer world. Every object’s essence is defined through its interaction with ourselves. Nothing remains stagnant – every existence already contains non-existence, and vice-versa. However, the relativity of being is not to be regarded as absolute. That means, that relatively stable and therefore relatively cognizable entities do exist, among them the words we say. Doubt is not considered absolute by relativists either, which differentiates them from skeptics and agnostics. They dare to believe. Uncertainty is Godly – here, Protagoras becomes very close to the concept of apathetic theology. Gorgius shared Protagoras’s views and tried to prove them applying the same method as Zeno applied when upholding Parmenidis’s philosophy. He argued that if one accepts the opposite point of view and agrees that nothing can exist and not exist at the same time, one is bound to come to an the absurd conclusion that nothing is cognizable and nothing exists. To prove that there is a universal contradiction within the Existence itself, Protagoras and his followers in their turn put forward a number of special logical arguments, called rules of contraries, or sophisms. The most well-known of them is the Euathle’s sophism, which proves that an object can be such and different at the same time in the same respect. Generally speaking, all relationships of any entity are extraneous. The idea that all entities, including concepts, exist and do not exist at the same time, was also accepted by Plato. It should be stressed, that Plato’s philosophy as a whole is relativists’ greatest achievement. In his dispute against relativism, Aristotle put forward the main concepts of his ontology: the existence falls into the existence in possibility and the existence in reality, or substance and accidence – the ever changing “sublunary” world and the stable world of divine heavenly bodies. This division made his system self-contradictory to the point of absurd. Aristotle quite realized, that the direct disproof of relativism is hardly possible, which fact makes his criticism a mere tautology. It is very indicative in this respect that materialists, idealists and even skeptical agnostics applied the same arguments do disprove relativism. That demonstrates that the inner contradiction between any forms of “absolutism” and relativism is the most fundamental philosophical problem. Relativist ideas were repeatedly renewed throughout history, provided the social conditions were favourable. In variations, the concepts were advanced by Tzuan Tsi and ancient Chinese sophists, apostle Paul, Nicolas of Cusa, Galileo, Rene Descartes, G. Berkley, D. Hume, Ch. S. Pierce, E. Mach, A. Bogdanov, F. de Saussure, N. Bore, P. Feuerabend, U. Quain and others. However, no consistent relativist ontological system was developed after Protagoras. Meanwhile, a valid relativist theory could provide a clue to a fuller and more adequate general physical concept of the world, and to a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics. -/- Relativism as an ontological system of beliefs. -/- The relativist principle of relativity of all that exists is fundamental for the entire system of philosophy. Absolutely everything exists, but, at the same time, no existence is absolute. Anything is possible, but those entities only exist for us with which we interact this way or another, i. e., reality is interaction, “I interact – hence, I exist”. However, an overly close relationship between entities leads to non-existence – in other words, there is a certain existential optimum. For all of us, information, or perceptible heterogeneities, is real. Each of us is the center of a definite system of interactions with the world. If God is an endless Possibility, then the World is but the man’s dialogue with God. However, the ties that bind us with the world are of some definite kind, which predetermines our reality. The principle of relativity constrains itself, as any relativity is relative. On the one hand, that calls forth the Evil – caused by our own weakness. On the other hand, it makes our world relatively stable and cognizable. Generally speaking, the world is what we are. Everybody has an own Universe, but since people are fairly similar, our universes can be regarded as one Universe with common laws and regulations. It is possible for us to change the degree of objects’ existence in relation to ourselves and one another. It is equally important, though, to remain ourselves (keep following our “warrior’s path”). Since everything exists and no existence is absolute, the process of cognition should involve a criticism of everything but never a complete rebuttal of anything. The criterion of verity for any theory then is in its capacity to build itself upon a bigger number of diverse statements than in any other theory. Theoretically, all philosophies should ideally be complementary. The question of what in fact happened is meaningless unless we specify the “we”, the “where” and the “when”. The past can only exist as part of the present. When we change, our past undergoes corresponding qualitative objective changes, all of which are irreversible. The contemporary physics regards all objects of the Universe as existing for one another, which results in absurd conclusions. In fact, only what we interact with, exists. The so called “speed of light in vacuum” c is the maximum speed of direct interaction and direct exchange of signals. Specifically, at the oncoming speed c with a significant blue parallax the gamma-quantum is unable to interact with the matter. When this speed is reached, the gravitational mass of objects in relation to one another becomes equal to zero (imaginary), whereas their inertial mass equals infinity. Further acceleration will bring us into an entirely different Universe. That means that the Universe is an open system, which fact destroys all present-day cosmological models. Anything is possible in this world. Our reality is magic. Every bit of space contains a potentially limitless number of bits of other, however virtual, universes, as well as an infinite number of particles, which are still virtual for us (as postulated by quantum mechanics). In other words, there exists an infinity of different realities. With all the above in mind, the different levels of entities’ existence, in particular, of Life and Reason, should be taken into consideration. For example, to which extent a live system exists in relation to the inanimate forms of being is very indefinite, as what life is has to be determined by living creatures. An even greater compass of levels of existence can be brought about through interaction – that is the core idea of Godel’s theorem. As a result, the range of forms of existence tends towards infinity – the evolution of matter through super-intelligence will bring us up to God’s heights. A more generalized mathematical model of the physical world, including a universal operator of the co-existence of objects, can be developed based on the above considerations. The bonds between objects become weaker owing to 1) a high speed, 2) acceleration, 3) rotation, 4) strong gravity, 5) strong fields of other kinds, 6) the difference of levels of existence , 7) phase shifts. Yet, there always is an existential optimum. Such mathematical model is to operate certain non-transitive algebras. Relativist ontology assumes that the notion of “temperature” is relative, thus making it possible to ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In its turn, that will allow for phase shifts. A perpetual motion machine of the second type will become a reality. Rotation could presumably be used to increase inertial and decrease gravitational mass, slowing down the time. An experimental research could shed light on the mentioned effects. (shrink)

This article addresses the role of auditory-related verbs in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Pierre Schaeffer in order to shed light on a broader tendency in French thought. Through a comparative reading of the ways in which Nancy, in Listening, and Schaeffer, in Treatise on Musical Objects, mobilize verbs such as écouter and entendre, I connect the issue of language to debates about descriptive and prescriptive approaches towards listening. Drawing on the Dictionary of Untranslatables, I argue that Nancy's and (...) Schaeffer's engagements with listening can be mapped onto historical modes of framing politics and ethics, which are also characterized by descriptive and prescriptive approaches. By showing how theories of listening connect to political and ethical debates, this study discusses the ideological instrumentalization of listening as opposed to more descriptive and exploratory forms of engagement in the auditory and the faculty of the ear. (shrink)

Natural language provides motivation for studying modal backwards-looking operators such as “now”, “then” and “actually” that evaluate their argument formula at some previously considered point instead of the current one. This paper investigates the expressive power over models of both propositional and first-order basic modal language enriched with such operators. Having defined an appropriate notion of bisimulation for first-order modal logic, I show that backwards-looking operators increase its expressive power quite mildly, contrary to beliefs widespread among philosophers of language and (...) formal semanticists. That in turn presents a strong argument for the use of operator-based systems in the semantics of natural language, instead of systems with explicit quantification over worlds and times that have become a de-facto standard for such applications. The popularity of such explicit-quantification systems is shown to be based on the misinterpretation of a claim by Cresswell, which led many philosophers and linguists to assume that introducing “now” and “then” is expressively equivalent to explicitly quantifying over worlds and times. (shrink)

Perceptual experience and visual imagination both offer a first-person perspective on visible objects. But these perspectives are strikingly different. For it is distinctive of ordinary perceptual intentionality that objects seem to be present to the perceiver. I term this phenomenal property of experience ‘presence’. This paper introduces a positive definition of presence. Dokic and Martin (2017) argue that presence is not a genuine property of perceptual experience, appealing to empirical research on derealisation disorders, Parkinson’s disease, virtual reality and hallucination. I (...) demonstrate that their arguments fall short of establishing that presence is not perceptual. (shrink)

This paper reassesses a perennial concern of philosophy of education: the nature of the educational community and the role of the teacher in relation to such a community. As an entry point into this broader question, we turn to Philosophy for children, which has consistently emphasized the importance of community. Yet, not unlike pragmatist notions of community more broadly, the P4C community has largely focused on the goal-directed, purposive, aspect of the process of inquiry. The purpose of our paper is (...) to move beyond P4C in order to theorize a non-instrumental, in-tentional, educational community without pre-conceived goals or intentions. Drawing largely from the work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, we describe the P4C-classroom as one that refuses to be operative and thus undermines the taken-for-granted logic of means and ends that underlies how educational communities are typically depicted and justified. Again drawing from Agamben, we identify the specific ways in which the experience of love and friendship constitute the in-tentional community. The silence of the voice of the teacher enables the experience of love and friendship to come about. Being included as an exclusion via his/her silence, the teacher is neither immanent nor transcendent but alongside the community as a paradigm of friendship. (shrink)

No século XIX, com o estabelecimento das ciência humanas, desenvolve-se dentro da filosofia uma disputa sobre o método científico. Em termos gerais, essa disputa girava em torno de saber se o método científico era universal, aplicando-se indistintamente a fenômenos naturais e humanos, ou se cada tipo de fenômeno demandava um tipo especial de método. No presente trabalho essa disputa é circunscrita à discussão entre Dilthey e a escola neokantiana de Baden, nas figuras de Windelband e Rickert. Apesar de relativamente bem (...) documentada, os motivos e fundamentos dessa discussão permanecem obscuros e pouco estudados. Procurando lançar alguma luz sobre esses pressupostos, este trabalho toma como estratégia de investigação a análise das concepções de experiência de cada um dos pensadores citados. Com isso, procura-se mostrar que boa parte das críticas e incompreensões de ambos os lados podem ser explicadas pelas diferenças entre as concepções de experiência assumidas por cada um deles. De um lado, para os neokantianos, a experiência é pensada como algo passivo e o método científico como aquilo que a organiza em função da orientação assumida na pesquisa. Já Dilthey oscila ambiguamente entre uma posição ontológica, que procura determinar o método científico a partir de tipos diferentes de experiência, e uma concepção formal próxima ao neokantismo, pela qual a experiência é distinguida em tipos em função da orientação metodológica adotada na pesquisa científica. Por fim, além de expor a atualidade da crítica metodológica neokantiana, este trabalho procura mostra que a ambiguidade do pensamento de Dilthey não constitui uma limitação, mas reflete as dificuldades de uma nova forma de pensar que terá desdobramentos decisivos na filosofia contemporânea, para além das discussões sobre metodologia científica. (shrink)

RESUMO As elites simbólicas perpetuam as formas mais importantes de racismo, o que aponta a importância de nos dedicarmos à análise de como discursos racistas são construídos, com foco específico no discurso da elite branca e, neste trabalho, da branquitude soteropolitana conforme plasmada por estudantes da Universidade Federal da Bahia. Para tanto, reunimos dados, gerados na UFBA, oriundos de questionários abertos e grupo focal com estudantes de graduação. Nesta análise discursiva crítica, utilizamos recorte de uma pesquisa mais ampla, na qual (...) se investigou a percepção da branquitude por discentes autodeclarados/as brancos/as da UFBA. Nossa análise sugere que a percepção do privilégio branco, mesmo quando afirmada, é permeada de ideias que podem fundamentar práticas e/ou discursos racistas, e que a representação de mulheres negras ainda é calcada em estereótipos socialmente construídos numa sociedade fortemente racista como a nossa. ABSTRACT Symbolic elites perpetuate the most critical forms of racism, which points to the importance of the analysis of how racist discourses are constructed, with a specific focus on the white elite. In this paper, the focus is Bahia's capital whiteness as shaped by students at the Federal University of Bahia. For this, we gathered data, generated at UFBA, from open questionnaires and a focus group with undergraduate students. For this critical discursive analysis, we used a section of a broader research, in which the perception of whiteness by self-declared white students from UFBA was investigated. Our analysis suggests that the understanding of white privilege is permeated with ideas that can support racist practices and discourses, and that the representation of black women is still based on socially constructed stereotypes in an actively racist society such as ours. (shrink)

Pri Slovenski matici je izšla imenitna knjiga izbranih pisem italijan­skega pesnika Francesca Petrarce, ki je po svoji vsebini, številnih aluzijah ter idejnih odvodih v okviru antičnega izročila za ljubitelje književnosti in humanizma prava poslastica. Prevajalca Anja Božič in Brane Senegačnik sta pripravila posrečen izbor iz sicer obsežne zbirke Petrarcovih pisem domačim oziroma prijateljem (Rerum fa­miliarum libri), ki sta ga razdelila na tri dele: Prijateljem, V spodnji svet, kjer gre za antične avtorje, ter pisma V zgornji svet, namenjena Petrarcovim sodobnikom.

Although a substantial number of papers is published on the topic of consciousness, there is still little consensus on what its nature is and how the physical and phenomenal worlds are connected. Most published research establishes a causal relation between the brain and the mind, but it lacks a cogent theory of how this relation comes to be. In contrast, this paper uses a set of thought experiments grounded in quantum information theory to derive a framework for resolving the hard (...) problem of consciousness. Despite the common tendency to treat the problem purely philosophically, in this paper, consciousness and qualia are analyzed through established formal theory deriving conclusions regarding their relation which provide counter-arguments for the commonly held dualist view. Through the informational monism framework, a case is made for a fundamentally phenomenal nature of information. (shrink)

This article aims to make public part of the research on the concept of ‘light’ in the theological and, above all, liturgical tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church, based on its representation of the concept of ‘hypostasis’. Taking as a point of departure the interpretation of the expression ‘light of light’ [φῶς ἐκ φωτός (phôs ek phōtos)] of the text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol, the article presents a proposal for the interpretation of the concept of ‘representation’ for this specific case, (...) based on the idea of apomímesis, and applies this concept to a reading of the place of ‘light’ in the Holy Scripture, in the Patrology and in the Greek Eastern Liturgies. (shrink)